Strange Attractors (23 page)

It was a boot, and a bit of his leg. When he discovered the rest of his body twisted around a tree trunk, he
changed his mind about jumping back into it. The broken limbs, severed leg and eviscerated organs were not inviting, and not habitable either. He couldn’t tell if he’d drowned or bled to death but either way he’d have to create another tulpa from scratch.
How long will that take?
Days? Months? He didn’t know, but this place seemed as good as anywhere else for the task, so he started immediately.

He hovered in the fork of a giant white oak, settling in for the long process of turning his thoughts into form. He had a good visualisation started, almost an outline, when something distracted him. The water below had subsided, revealing a corpse. He paused his creating to take a closer look.

Floating face up was a young man, his body lapping the base of the tree like a dinghy tied to a wharf. It was caught on a root, the trickling stream washing the body clean as it flowed past. Jarrod dropped closer still. The young man’s eyes were the strangest colour.
Like violets in the snow. Fascinating.

They were open eyes, staring into nothing without a tear or a blink. The rain fell into them, overflowing the rims.
Definitely dead, but from what?
Jarrod scanned the internal organs. The body had been buried quite recently, judging by the congestion of muddy water in his lungs, which was great news. There was no damage from the crows or other scavengers. Everything seemed in quite good order. He looked for the cause of death and found an arrow in the neck.
Tricky. So many veins and arteries in that region.
He checked for toxicity and found traces of
Conium maculatum
.
Hemlock? Primitive. Still, the preserving qualities of the alkaloids could be a blessing.
Jarrod felt a prickle, like goosebumps.
If the ascending paralysis hasn’t travelled too far it may not be so bad.

There would be one screaming headache to deal with if he did wake up in this body. He probably wouldn’t be able to eat for a week, but hemlock toxicity didn’t cause lesions of any kind—no cellular damage. No necrosis. It wouldn’t take long to heal if he could remain conscious, remain self-aware. That was the big
if.

Can I do it?
Jarrod glanced at his thought form, an outline in his mind’s eye. At this rate it would take him close to a full lunar cycle to create a functional tulpa. The lad’s body could be healed in less than a day.
If the previous owner isn’t about and I can keep the crows away in the morning…

He tuned into the energy of the grove and expanded out over the field. It was a mess, filled with maimed bodies and their sundered spirits. Some ghosts sat next to their corpses, the driving rain forming septic pools of blood and sludge at their feet. They didn’t appear to notice him. They didn’t know they were dead. He scanned beyond the battleground in all directions but nowhere could he find an echo or hint of this lad’s consciousness. It was gone. In the time it took him to blink he made a choice based on myriad possible outcomes in as many branching worlds. He entered the body of the boy and attempted to bring it back to life.

Pain. Incredible pain.

He rolled over and coughed until he threw up, bile burning his throat, his lungs turning inside out. On hands and knees he crawled out from under the cloak, untangling it from the roots and branches, and collapsed on the grass. He felt his neck, tugging the arrow and screaming as the splintered shaft came free. He threw it aside and clamped the wound with the palm
of his hand, pushing hard. That seemed important, like something he had told himself to do as soon as he awoke. Had he been passed out for long? His body felt like wagon wheels were parked on it. He blinked, sensing part of himself hard at work, racing to make something happen. It felt urgent but he couldn’t think why. He pulled the cloak over his head and curled into a ball, shivering until he fell asleep.

When he woke again, the sun was shining on his face, the warmth of it coaxing him back to consciousness. His head pounded and his guts were in knots. For a brief moment he had the strangest feeling of satisfaction, as if he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do.
Perfect. Now I can just…

He frowned, pulling twigs from his hair. There was something he was meant to do. He was sure of it. There was a sense of significance to his life that felt bigger than anything he’d remembered. Bigger than the memory he had of living on the streets with his sister, Shaea. Bigger even than an apprenticeship to the Stable Master—which was the biggest thing he could ever imagine. On the edge of his mind were all the answers and for a flashing moment he glimpsed them. And then they were gone.

Like a cliff face breaking free of the mountain, awareness dropped from the boundaries of his mind, sliding away. The moment passed and all he could remember was the last thing he was told to do.

‘Mind the horses, Xane, and don’t get shot.’

Propping himself up on his elbows, he realised he’d managed neither. The horses were gone and he’d clearly been wounded. He touched the hole in his neck, glad the scab had formed and stopped the bleeding, though his head felt caught between a hammer and an anvil. He needed a stimulant, strong
tea or coffee, before the hemlock set in. Judging by the pain in his guts, it already had. Maybe they botched the job and the arrow had been underdosed. That was the only explanation for him waking up at all. Hemlock, administered properly, was lethal, and fast. It caused an ascending paralysis that…
How in the course of the Five Rivers would I say a thing like that? Ascending paralysis? I don’t even know what that means.

He was about to chastise himself for carelessness—getting shot, losing the horses—when he studied the surrounding fields. They were littered with crows, squawking and squabbling over chunks of flesh still sporting bits of uniform—Corsanon uniforms. The whole place was choked with bodies and as the death wagons rolled towards him, he realised he’d actually done all right. He was alive, which was more than he could say for any of his comrades.

He checked his side, smiling to feel his sword still in place. Not many stableboys wore them, but he’d shown aptitude. He ran his hand down the length of the scabbard, frowning for a moment at the thickness of the width. For an instant he struggled to remember something different. An image of the thin blades used by the Timbali witches formed in his mind. He coughed, his throat sandpaper dry. What would make him think of that? He didn’t know anything about Timbali. He wasn’t even certain where it was.

He tried shouting to the nearest wagon but his voice was hoarse and the sound didn’t carry. Struggling to sit, he waved at the driver—a burly man standing on the buckboard, supervising the others. It was pulled by four palomino horses, one of the teams in his charge. He delighted in seeing them. He loved horses. That felt familiar.

The thought triggered another image. Into his mind came clear as daylight a copper-red mare tied to a tree, pawing the snow. The horse whickered at him and he smiled, calling back, but that was crazy. He’d never seen snow, or a mare so red.
The hemlock must be causing hallucinations.
He scratched his head.
Hallucinations? What’s that mean?

The driver halted, whistling to him. He tried to stand but couldn’t. He wondered if his legs were broken. He slumped against the tree trunk, waiting to be collected. For a horrid moment he thought perhaps he was only a ghost and these men were going to pull his body out of the ground and throw it onto the heap with the others, but he laughed and heard the nervous sound in his ears. He felt the vibration in his throat, the dappled sun touching his tongue until he closed his mouth. A spirit wouldn’t feel such things, he was certain.

‘Ain’t you just lucky?’ the driver said.

Strong arms gripped him, hoisting him out of the muck. He still couldn’t make his legs move. ‘I think so,’ he said, the words a whisper.

‘Xane, isn’t it? The Stable Master’s new boy? He’ll be pleased you survived. Says you got talent.’

‘Xane.’ He said the name and was about to agree but felt a protest, as if it wasn’t quite right. ‘No, I’m Jar…’

‘What’s that, lad?’

His thought disappeared. ‘Yah, I’m Xane.’ He did remember being called that. Of course. He was Xane, and his sister was Shaea. He lifted his head. It was all there in his memory. He pictured Shaea. She would have known he was hurt. She would have tried to come to him, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He sensed for her but got nothing. It was like she wasn’t in the city. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said.

‘Damn demons there is, lad.’ The man checked his neck wound. ‘You’ve been shot by one of our own arrows, and by all rights you should be dead.’

Xane smiled, thinking of someone he cared about but couldn’t quite remember. ‘There is no
should
.’ He mumbled the words.

‘Say again?’

They’d reached the wagon and lifted him up, sitting him on the tailgate. He wrapped his arm around the railing and shook his head, wincing. ‘Never mind.’

‘It’s the poison,’ the other man said. ‘We best get him to the healers.’

The driver clucked to his team and the wheels lurched forward, half rolling, half skidding through the mud. It must have rained buckets. Xane bumped along, careful not to look at the bodies piled high beside him. The warm sun, buzzing flies and the sickly-sweet smell of decomposition all seemed to mix with the bile in his throat, and he spent most of the journey dry retching over the rail. When he looked up, he yelled out, ‘Stop!’ He struggled to his knees. ‘My charges.’

The driver pulled his team to a halt as a tall palomino gelding and a mud-caked black mare came trotting to him, their hooves squelching in the muck.

‘You are blessed, lad. What stars have you rising today?’

‘My stars?’ He stiffened. The question was like a match striking the edge of his mind, unable to light. ‘I don’t know.’
I’m not a star watcher but…

‘Lucky ones,’ the driver said, ignoring Xane’s confusion. ‘You’ve got lucky stars.’

The driver caught the horses and tied them to the back of the wagon. Xane relaxed. At least now he wouldn’t have to explain to the Stable Master why he’d lost both the sweetest mare in Corsanon and the
fastest gelding ever bred. He closed his eyes, hoping they would get there soon. He had nothing more to retch but it didn’t stop him trying.

When they reached the city gates he had a terrible feeling they were going the wrong way. He tried to protest but they dropped him at the healers’ temple where they tended his body, washing it clean, flushing the wound and encouraging him to drink coffee so strong it was like bitter mud. But even when his headache subsided and his vision cleared, he had the most uncomfortable feeling that he had forgotten something vital, something more important than minding the horses or even finding his sister to let her know he was all right. Struggle as he did, for the life of him he couldn’t work out what it was.

Grayson tried not to breathe. He didn’t want to taste the air. When he finally did have to fill his lungs he had a coughing fit. Sector Six reeked; the air carried a metallic odour like a blacksmith’s forge that burned refuse instead of coal. It made his tongue prickle and his stomach clench. He didn’t want to believe this was the right place, but the Entity had brought him here, along with Everett, for a reason. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. If it was simply a random event selected from an array of possibilities with no purpose behind it other than to propel him through existence, he was going to be sick. How Everett would respond, he didn’t know. The man was far from his right mind. Everett believed he would find evidence of the ‘thief’, though Grayson had his doubts. Was there a thief? What children was he talking about? Everett’s stories made little sense. They seemed to be bouts of paranoid ranting. He had no memory of the time they’d spent together in Sector Six, busting Rosette
out of Cryo. It was like it never happened. Everett’s obsession was the thief who had stolen infants from the village. Nothing else mattered to him and Grayson hadn’t had a chance to question Regina, if indeed she knew any more.

The experience was disquieting, raising difficult questions. How could Everett not remember Canie and Rosette, and himself for that matter, unless it wasn’t really Everett—or the Everett he knew? Had the doctor lost his memory or his mind? Or had a future event changed the past? A past in which Rosette never was trapped in this world? Grayson tightened his jaw and followed Everett down the path. He would have a look around, humouring the man until he could figure out what to do next.

‘Grayson?’

He heard the voice but didn’t believe it.

‘Grayson!’

‘Rosette?’ he whispered.

He wanted to spin around, run to her, hold her, convince himself it was truly Rosette, but he couldn’t move. His body was frozen, petrified. As long as he didn’t turn, didn’t see, it could still be her. It could be Rosette, not a dream or a fantasy or a terrible trick of the wind. He kept his back to the portal, prolonging the answer for as long as he could.

‘Grayson!’ Her hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him around. ‘Are you deaf?’

‘It is you,’ he said.

‘Of course it’s me. What in blazing demons are you doing here again? Do you have any idea how we’ve been trying to find you?’

He looked at her belly, huge under the soft creamy dress, her dark cloak floating in the breeze behind her. ‘Rosette, it’s you.’

‘You said that already.’ She gave him a little shake. ‘You have to come back with me. Kali needs you. We all need you. Right now!’

He turned to Everett, wondering if seeing Rosette would jog his memory, but the man was far down the hill and talking with someone near the lake. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, taking her hand. It felt warm, familiar, and his breath caught.

‘No time for this.’ She gripped him tight and hauled him back towards the portal.

He stopped, pulling her into his arms. ‘Rosette, I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Looking everywhere, and…’